That's "Nicklas." With a "C."

Hi there, friends and neighbors! Let me very briefly apologize for my exceptionally long absence from the ol' blog here. I was really busy there for a while. I even missed the first three games of the season. After that, as you probably know, the Caps haven't done a whole lot worth writing about.

Tonight's win over Ottawa, however, is worth writing about. It is one thing to record a win against the team with the best record in the NHL. It is quite another to go into their home building and do it. IT's even better still when your team comes into the game mired in a soul-crushing slump that has catapulted you to the bottom of the league standings. Yet that is exactly, as you may have figured out by now, what the Washington Capitals did tonight, beating the Ottawa Senators by a final tally of 4-1.What follows here are various thoughts I had about tonight's game, organized by the player about whom I was thinking, in an easy to digest, bullet point format (including one needlessly ignorant statement), because I can no longer be bothered to string together a series of coherent paragraphs, sentences, or, on occasion, letters. Sooojruofm.

• Alex Ovechkin - Had a good game. 1-1-2. Meh. Call me when he has a ten-goal night, because at this point, there's nothing more he can do to impress me more than he already has.
  
• Victor Kozlov - He's playing much better after moving to his natural right wing position. This is a phrase I will probably write quite often. (Note to idiot coaches: Yes! I know it seems weird! But most players do, in fact, thrive when assigned to the roles for which they are best suited!)
• NIKLAS BACKSTROM NICKLAS BACKSTROM!!!! He's playing much better after moving to his natural center position. It took him sixteen often-frustrating games, but Nick With a C finally kicks off the first six game goal scoring streak of his career. I'm assuming. (Ed. Note: How is it that I knew, almost immediately, that Backstrom had scored the goal while Smokin Al and Locker had to spend twenty minutes analyzing the replay? Because I saw Michael Nylander immediately reach into the net, pick up the puck, and skate off with a souvenir that will probably have some sentimental value for his young teammate. Because that's the kind of classy veteran Michael Nylander is. I guess what I'm trying to say is: I can't stand Al Koken.)
  
• Brooks Laich - Played much of the game on the first line alongside Ovechkin and Michael Nylander, which I think is a brilliant move on the part of Glen Hanlon. If you can't put Chris Clark on Ovie's right wing, why not put his eerily similar looking doppelganger out there?
• Speaking of Chris Clark, what's that guy's deal? He was practically invisible out on the ice tonight, almost as if he wasn't even there. Not the kind of play you expect from your captain.
• Olie Kolzig - Had his best game of the season, I thought. His shutout against Carolina might have been better, but screw you, I missed that game because I was doing a play. I am a very busy and important person.
• Kerry Fraser - Should not be required to wear a helmet. Period. The excess hair-product fumes that are trapped underneath that helmet seem to have done to Fraser's brain what they would otherwise be doing to our planet's ozone layer.
• Chris Borque - Should consider plastic surgery. He could probably get more ice time on Ovechkin's line if his face starts looking more like a particular Lithuanian Devil. Of course, he'd also need to start skating on stilts. Even so, it's got to be better than the two-or-three-shifts-then-ride-the-bench strategy he and Donald Brashear employed tonight.

Did you find the needlessly ignorant statement? If you said to yourself "Biff, you moron, Chris Clark is on injured reserve", then you were right. If, however, you said it out loud, you probably should see a mental health professional.

Next game is at home Saturday night against the 0-6 on the road Tampa Bay Lightning.